We're building!!!!

YAY! Words probably can't describe how excited we are to finally have started building our new house! As of the 22nd January, our builder was on site doing a site scrape, and preparing for the slab. We have visited the site quite regularly since, and as Oscar started school in Riverwalk in early February, we are now doing a little drive-by daily if we know something is happening.

The images below are from 28th January through to 14th February. 

Pool feature after site scrape. Big square to the left is where our garage will be, smaller square at the front is where our front porch will be.

Oscar and I went by the block on Tuesday 28th January after we had seen the excavator in full swing the previous week. We'd had a lot of rain over the weekend, and as a result we had a couple of swimming pool features where our slab was going in... I have put some description on the pictures.

Front porch area. The house next door is almost complete.

This is at the back of our block, as you can see our car is parked out the front, and I asked Oscar to stay out there so he didn't get muddy shoes. The pool feature here at the back will be our alfresco area.

Other side of our block where living room and bedrooms will go.

The following week, we went by after I picked up Oscar from school on his first day, Monday 3rd of February. Even though we still had a bit of a pool feature, you could see that the piers to secure the slab in place had been put in (the blue metal plates sticking up).

Metal piers have been installed 3rd February 2020.

Excavator there to do some more work on the following days...

At the end of the week, we checked in again to see if any progress, and all plumbing pipes and gravel base for the slab had been done. You start to get a feel for where the house will actually sit here.

plumbing and gravel base for slab has gone in 6th February 2020

Front seen from our neighbour's driveway

Electricity cabinet is up as well. You get a feel for here how close the houses sit... not much room down the sides of the house, but it's how they build here.

The very next day, we were so lucky to all go and check out the work, as Yasmin had been to an event all day, and wasn't sure if I could pick up Oscar in time from school, so Kasper worked from home in the afternoon so he could pick up Oscar (I was done in time though). 

We then decided to go by to see if anything had happened since yesterday (Thursday 6th February), and we were very surprised to see almost all the prep work for pouring the slab had been done. The workers were still fitting some metal sheeting inside where the concrete was going to be poured. 

Friday 7th February, frame for concrete slab being prepared with metal sheeting.

here you can see the waffle slab material being used.

We normally get an email update every Friday from our builder about the week's work and what they plan on doing the following week, but no email on Friday 7th February. However, as we had seen all the work going on, we though they might send us an update Monday, maybe they had been too busy Friday afternoon.

Surely enough, Monday morning 10th February at 7.20AM we receive the following two pictures from our site supervisor, sending us pictures of the slab being poured 😃 What an awesome start to the week! Oscar was just a little disappointed that there were no pictures of the concrete truck!!  

Slab being poured Monday 10th February at 7.20AM.

Obviously being quite excited about the slab pour in the morning, Oscar and I went to check it out after school pick-up. We didn't have time to go by in the morning because it's difficult enough to get out the door 30 minutes before school starts in order to get our 20-25 min peak hour drive in, and get there on time. 

We were very surprised to see the workers had already taken off most of the timber framework around the slab, and was cleaning it up nicely. Amazing that is actually dries so quickly. The longer the slab can sit and dry/cure, the better.

workers getting rid of the timber framework that was in place to shape the slab.

Now you can see where the front porch and garage will be, as it is slightly lower than the rest of the house.

Knowing that the slab will have to sit and cure for a while, we didn't expect anything else to happen this week, so did not visit every day, also because Oscar managed to pick up his first cold a week after starting school, so he was home sick from Tuesday to Thursday. Luckily, it was a quick cold to get over this time, and he was happy to go back to school Friday 14th February.

Friday morning after school drop off, I went by the block to see how everything was looking, and the slab looked nice and dry (this was before the massive thunderstorm and flash flooding we got Friday afternoon just in time for school pick up)...

Friday 14th February in the morning, slab looking good and dry.

We received an email from the builder that the next step next week is termite protection. This is a barrier they put in around the slab to prevent termites to get in and munch on the timber frame.

Kasper went to see the electric panel heater company on Saturday, so now all our heaters are the right sizes for the rooms, and a schedule is set up for that company to come and work with electricians to get the power points in the right spots for the heaters.

We are really excited to be off to a great start. From here on, it will be much more interesting when the frame starts going up and we can get a feel for how big the rooms are going to be 😄

I will try to update here regularly as the building continues!

Have a lovely weekend peeps 😘
Yasmin xx

Take 2 on house plans - getting close!

So it's been a long time since our land titled (July 2019), and we have been busy getting out of our first building contract (as the builder was not able to build what they promised us), then arranging a new builder who can build the house we want...

We had to start from scratch with our floor plan, but luckily our new builder G J Gardner Homes does custom homes, so we could pretty much get the floor plan we wanted :-)

This is the (almost) final floor plan. 

We are very excited to have a great layout with our large family/dining room with raked ceiling, and a wood fire place!!! Morso of course ;-) We also have an extra living area in the retreat with access straight to the garden, which has gotten bigger thanks to shrinking the house after re-assessing how much space we needed.

We will hopefully sign the contract this week, then we will just be waiting for paperwork (council approval etc.), and then hoping we can get our slab in before Christmas!!!

Our final colour choices was made this week, and we are very excited about our Scandinavian look choices. It will be great going back to our roots!

Here are the colour combinations;

The whole house will have engineered timber floors expect for the bathrooms and laundry, will be so nice to NOT have carpet anywhere!! Light Scandinavian timber floors :)

Our kitchen colours changed a few times, but with cabinetry staying white throughout. We did look at getting a glass splashback, but it turned out quite expensive, so we've changed to a beautiful subway tile for splashback!

Kitchen colour combination

The kitchen colour combination ended up with white cabinetry throughout the kitchen/pantry, with the light grey marble look stone benchtop for the kitchen and the light grey laminate look benchtop for the pantry. The Union Green Gloss subway tile for splashback, can't wait to see this, will be so beautiful!!

We will also get our handle-free kitchen happening!! This will be the profile on the kitchen cabinets, so no more getting caught on the kitchen handles when cooking dinner!!

In the bathrooms, we are being a bit more adventurous with both floor tiles and cabinetry colours... 

Bathroom / Laundry floor tiles, with the dark blue cabinetry for the bathrooms

The bathrooms will have this beautiful light blue and white floor tile (called the Majorca Provicial ;-))  We will combine this with a simple white subway tile for the walls, a dark blue cabinetry colour, white stone benchtops, and the dark blue feature tile in the shower niches.

Dark blue cabinetry, white stone benchtops and the dark blue tile as a feature tile in shower niches.

Simple white subway tile for bathroom walls :-)

For the laundry, we will have the same floor tiles as the bathrooms, however to break up the colour a bit, we have gone with a light oak colour for the cabinets, and simple white laminate for benchtops.

Laundry cupboards and benchtop

Can't wait to get started!! I will update the blog throughout the building process, so stay tuned for updates...

Yasmin xx

Trip to Adelaide - November 2019

A while ago Oscar and his dad where watching a documentary about The Ghan - an iconic Australian train route between Adelaide and Darwin. So using a combination of farmor's gift and daddy's frequent flyer point we decided to go on a trip to Adelaide to see The Ghan!

We departed from Avalon Airport on Sunday 3-Nov at 9.10am. Oscar can't go anywhere without Stampe so of course the globetrotter rabbit had to come along on this journey as well.

To our surprise there was an Antonov 124 at Avalon Airport. The Antonov is another "familiar face" from watching plane documentary movies.

Once in Adelaide we went straight to the ibis Hotel Adelaide to drop off our bags, and then jumped back into the taxi and headed for Parklands Train Station to inspect The Ghan before its departure to Darwin.

Link to Videos:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1q5-Pp-XMmrqXHk-Npiygfg4F_emFdnLM/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b4TR3djTBS7VQpHnmLjjLN-jpmmbx36-/view?usp=sharing
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZAhlpxt1kjLBrpCU4j51CkOVbC-jAFoA

After The Ghan has departed we walked back to our hotel to check-in and relax. We got a room on the 13th floor with a magnificent view of Adealide and surrounds.

 As we were relaxing we saw a lot of airplanes coming in for landing, and we also had the departure and arrival timetable on our TV, so we decided to play Air Control Tower.

Link to Video:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13pFqwC25dE9mr97fCxM9_EF_lj4F_kB1/view?usp=sharing

We also did a short walk around the Hotel and saw the Adelaide Arcade, which was very nice and then it was dinner time. We had pizza and spaghetti, then we went back to the ibis hotel and went to bed.

The next morning we had a big breakfast buffet. We had muesli, bacon, eggs, sausages, mushroom, hash brown, waffles, and cake. Loaded up on energy we walked to Adelaide Zoo.

After the Zoo, it was time to head back to the airport and get ready for our flight home to Melbourne. We had an awesome trip and will definitely go back to Adelaide and bring mum next time.

New Business Adventures

So I've decided to start this little site venture as a photographer, mostly for the fun of it, but also for the chance of making some pocket cash 😏

I've set up a photography website, check it out here: Yasmin Tordal Photography

1st album I've published is from yesterday where I went around the local area in Point Cook and took photos of all the Christmas lights that people have decorated their houses with, you can see the album here: Christmas Lights Point Cook 2018, just click the photo album on the page 😄

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Land finally complete!

We are beyond excited!!!

Last week, the status on our online portal access at Riverwalk Estate in Werribee finally had the long awaited update "Construction complete" on our land development 😃

We have certainly been very patient, as the land originally was supposed to be ready in October 2017 (!!), then it was delayed until April 2018, then July 2018, and now finally in September 2018 it's complete. We are now just waiting for the title so we can settle on the land, and THEN we can start building our new house when building permits have been approved by the council.

Since land construction was finally complete, Oscar and I went for a little drive to Riverwalk hoping we would be able to get a closer look. As it turned out, we were super lucky and the gates into the completed area were open, so we could drive right in and park in OUR DRIVEWAY 😃😃😃

Parked in our driveway :)

We had a good look around and took some nice pictures of our street and land...

Our street, our block is 5 driveways away on the left side

Our block seen from across the street, our driveway is on the left and there is a drain pipe in the middle of the block at the front.

The little marker on the edge of our block telling us it's lot 1705 

Oscar is very excited that this is where his new house will be!!

We will return with Kasper so I can get my traditional "sitting on the land" picture of where we are going to build (just like I did in Cranbourne)... but for now, here is a picture of Oscar and I happily taking possession 😂

Selfie on our block of land (I think Oscar was busy talking as always, hence the weird face 😆)

Throwback to sitting on Cranbourne land before we built 😎

Our street name (sign at the end of the street)

We should start to have a bit more activity on the blog now, as I will be putting up updates throughout the build process.

Happy reading!

House Plans taking shape and colour

This post is long overdue, as we actually finalised our house plans back in August. However, because the land settlement has been delayed a couple of times, we are now impatiently waiting until we can start building in June 2018.

The land was originally supposed to title in October 2017, then it was delayed until February/March 2018 due to some re-design of the drainage system, and then delayed again with council approvals, but the June 2018 date should be official, as we have received a letter with this information.

In the end, we did a fair few changes to the Porter Davis Dunedin 29 floor plan, as we wanted a bigger bedroom for Oscar, and a few changes to layout of ensuite and kitchen / galley/WIP (walk-in-pantry).

Here is the finalised floor plan :)

Our customised Dunedin 29 floor plan

As you can see, the ceiling in the Dining / Living room will be raked, which will give a fantastic sense of space (see my previous house plans post for images of the display home here). 

We have re-designed the kitchen with a bigger island that will include our wine fridge and some cupboards facing the living/dining area. We have also re-designed the back wall of the kitchen to include 2 wall ovens and pot drawers throughout the kitchen where possible. I can't tell you how excited I am to finally be getting my dream kitchen!!!

We also re-designed the galley/WIP, as the standard layout was just open shelves, which would not suit what we wanted to use the area for. So this area have been fitted out with a tall pull-out pantry, and benchtop with pot drawers and cupboards underneath for maximum storage of kitchen items. We will use the benchtop in here for appliances such as microwave, coffee machine, kettle, toaster etc. so we can keep the kitchen looking nice and tidy. 

Bedroom 3 will be Oscar's room, so he will have plenty of space. The rumpus room next door will be his play room, and when he gets a bit older, he can entertain his friends in this area without disturbing mum and dad too much ;-) This massive bedroom is essentially 2 bedrooms combined, and we have kept doors and wardrobes intact so we can put up a wall if we decide to for re-sale value.

Another thing we are really excited about is getting rid of ALL carpet. No carpet in this house!! Timber floors throughout except for the wet areas, which will be tiled.

timber floors throughout except for wet areas.

For a closer look at the kitchen plan (I know a few of you will enjoy this), please see below. We are really excited about the island bench, as it will have optimal functionality with hidden pull-out bin drawer next to the sink, and a double dish drawer dishwasher on the other side. Next to the wine fridge a convenient cupboard, which will hold all serving ware for dining.

Even though it can't be seen on the drawing, there will be a sliding cavity door between the kitchen and WIP so we can close the door to hide all the appliances and food items in the pantry. I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the pull-out tall pantry, as I currently crawl around in my pantry to look for items tucked away in the back of the pantry, often having to empty out half a shelf to get what I want :-I That will soon be a thing of the past :-D

Here is a perspective drawing of the kitchen. The Island bench will not be there twice, but the drawing on the right side is the island bench seen from the kitchen side.

Perspective drawing of kitchen

 And for the kitchen nerds, here are all the elevations ;-)

back wall with cooktop, 2 x wall ovens and fridge space, pot drawers throughout!

Kitchen Island bench seen from kitchen side

Island bench seen from living/dining side with space for wine fridge,
cupboard for serve ware and space for bar stools 

Galley / WIP elevations with tall pull-out pantry, cupboard for storage and drawers for tea/coffee and mugs

Not only did we finalise layout of the house, we also had a whole day of "colour selections" where we picked colours and materials for the whole house. Here are the main colour selections we made for the house:

Kitchen, grey stone benchtop, white cabinets, timber floors

The timber floors in the kitchen are the same timber floors that run throughout the house.

WIP colours, cabinets same colour as kitchen, but picked laminate benchtop to save a bit of money :-I

We chose same colour scheme for both bathrooms to keep the colours a bit consistent. Actually, the floor tile will be the same for all bathrooms/toilet and laundry.

However, we did decide to mix it up a bit and went with a bold blue colour for the cabinetry, a nice stone benchtop with blue speckles through and marble look wall tiles and light grey concrete look floor tiles. 

Bathroom/Ensuite, blue cabinetry, blue speckled stone bench top,
marble look wall tile and grey concrete look floor tile.

Ensuite, closer look at floor tile and marble tile
plus we picked the dark grey tile as a feature tile in our shower recess. 

For a better look at the wall and floor tile, see here:

wall tile for ensuite and bathroom

floor tile for all wet areas

Here is the inspiration for the ensuite and bathroom look:

inspiration for ensuite and bathroom colour scheme

For the laundry, we decided to mix it up a bit and go with timber look cabinets, white laminate benchtop and the same grey concrete look floor tile as the bathrooms, see below.

Laundry colour scheme

Finally, we also picked all the outdoor colours for the house. As the house is built entirely in Hebel, we will have a rendered finish throughout. The light beige colour in the top left corner will be the main colour of the house, with the dark grey windows, doors, roof and feature render. Dark timberlook garage doors, and we plan to upgrade the front entry door at some stage to have a similar timber look. (the builder did not have the kind of door we really want, so this will be upgraded after we move in). The light colour in right top corner is the colour of the gutters and downpipes.

outdoor colour scheme

Now we just have to sit tight and wait until June 2018 rolls around so we can start building this fantastic house. We are looking so much forward to seeing it coming together, and will try to make regular updates during the building process!